11 - JUI 24 - Looking for MMC (Sadler)

For four years Kate and Gerry McCann have lived a never ending ordeal and they still don’t know when or if it will ever end. It began on a family holiday in Portugal when Madeleine, their four year daughter, simply vanished. She hasn’t been seen since. Tonight, the mystery deepens. You’re about to see home video never shown before and learn the vital clue Madeleine left behind. Here’s Rahni Sadler.

GMC : She was incredibly beautiful baby actually.KMC : We sound like the most biased parents on the planet now but she was just really compact and was just really the really nice, round, perfect head...and......you know...and then she, she opened her mouth ...the whole world knew she was with us... (1)

KMC : I always wanted to be a mother, erm, I don’t know, maybe that stemmed from being an only child and sort of, you know, wanting that feeling of family.VO : Madeleine was the daughter Kate and Gerry McCann always wanted. For years Kate struggled to fall pregnant so when Madeleine came along they felt blessed. They loved to photograph her and she loved being photographed.VO :This is the last picture of Madeleine taken seven hours before she disappeared.GMC : There’s a photo of her that afternoon that was taken at 2:29 (laughs) I think, we’ve got it recorded on the digital camera and er she was just sitting by the pool er with myself and we’ve both got our feet just paddling and she’s so happy.

VO : It’s been one thousand,
five hundred and forty-three days since Madeleine McCann vanished. To
keep Madeleine’s case alive this private couple has revealed more
of themselves than ever before. Kate and Gerry are both doctors. They
married in 1998 and in 2001, after three years of failing to conceive
naturally they began IVF. Eighteen months later, on the eve of
another hospital appointment, Kate did a home pregnancy test.

KMC : A little line appeared on
the test, you know, I’m a doctor, it says on the box any kind of
line is a positive but I said, Oh, I’m not sure, I’m not sure,
but there’s that faint kind of...mmm...maybe...

GMC : She showed it to
me and I’m like, it’s definitely..[laughs]...It’s definitely!

[All laugh together and speak at once]

KMC : And obviously we had a
scan and er there’s a little beating heart and that was our little
Madeleine you know...so.

[cuts into video of Madeleine at the
coffee table looking at a Christmas present:

VO : And then, in May 2003,
three became five.GMC : When she first saw the
twins she was just ecstatic. Absolutely ecstatic

[cuts into video of Madeleine and Sean
on their knees playing with a train set:

MMC : Oooh. This is a very big
Thomas (difficult to make out what Madeleine is saying, something about
toys)GMC : I felt blessed really
that at that time.

Interviewer: You said the family felt
really complete

KMC : You know, we did feel
incredibly lucky

Voice over : In late April 2007, the MCs decided to travel to Portugal for a family holiday.

Clip of Madeleine climbing the flight stairs to the aeroplane where she stumbles on the steps.VO : In the pink pants climbing the stairs to the plane is Madeleine.GMC : Oop day...you're alright?] VO : It was the McCanns first holiday overseas as a family and they went with three other couples.

GMC : It’s a small resort out of season, end of April beginning of May and it was incredibly quiet erm..., we felt very relaxed there, very relaxed. VO : In the evening the children were put to bed by half past seven before the adults had dinner together down at the pool. From where they ate, Kate and Gerry could see the back of their apartment and left the door unlocked.(2)GMC : If you measured it directly from the back of the apartment there’s a straight line to where we’re dining, it’s only 50 metres.(3)Rahni Sadler : 50 meters?GMC : Er..that, that’s a direct line...KMC : (interrupts) 49 point 4 on Google if you want to be really specific. GMC : But the proximity was very close. RS: Madeleine and the twins slept in a room at the front of villa 5A. Kate and Gerry believed their shuttered bedroom window, overlooking the car park and street, was closed and locked. Every half an hour the parents would take turns to check on each other’s children. (4)GMC : We thought that was the best thing erm, and it seemed to work absolutely fine and we didn’t have any problems right until the Thursday morning when Madeleine said “why didn’t you come when we cried last night?” We thought that’s odd. (5)

RS:You now think somebody had either tried to get into the room or was in the room and woke them up the night before. KMC : Er.. it seems too much of a coincidence that she made that comment and then that happened that night. RS:Looking back now, you think that could have been your one chance...to save her.

KMC : Well as soon as ermm I’d discovered that Madeleine had been taken it..it just hit me straight away what she said that morning and I just thought, my God, someone tried the night before. (6)

VO : On Thursday night, Kate put her daughter to bed for the last time.KMC : My memory of that evening is really vivid, I mean she was really tired but she was just cuddled up on my knee and we read a story and we also had some treats, some crisps and biscuits erm and then after they’d done the usual kind of, toilet, teeth erm we went through to the bedroom and read another story: If your happy and you know it...ermm...(elle regarde la journaliste puis ailleurs puis à nouveau) ...yep. (7)VO : At 9pm Gerry checked on Madeleine and the twin.GMC : I’d actually stuck my head around the door and I, I just lingered for a few seconds and thought how beautiful she was erm and that’s the last time I saw her. (8)RS:Last time you saw her.GMC : (closes eyes and swallows) MmmmRS:You thought how lucky you were. GMC : Exactly. Your world’s shattered within an hour.VO : At 10pm it was Kate’s turn to look in on the kids.

Clip de la recons-fiction d'avril 2009KMC : The bedroom door where the three children were sleeping was open much further than we’d left it. I went to close it to about here, and then as I got to about here it suddenly ...slammed. And then as I opened it, it was then that I just thought, I’ll just look at the children. And literally as I went back in, the curtains of the bedroom which were drawn, were closed ...whoooosh...it was like a gust of wind kind of blew them open. Retour au studioKMC :And the curtains
which had been closed just swung open into the room and reveal that the
shutter was all the way up and the window had been pushed right across
and then I just knew...I just knew she’d been taken. (9)

VO : Kate says that after a quick frantic search of the apartment she ran back towards Gerry who was still with their friends at the table by the pool.GMC : I know exactly where the table was. It was kinda this bit, so it would be about around here. And er, I was kinda sitting in this bit. Kate was clearly distraught and I jumped up but, kind of disbelief. She can’t be gone. She can’t...she can’t possibly be...how can she be gone? And I was saying that to Kate as we were both running. (10)RS:Police were called within fifteen minutes. But they didn’t arrive for nearly an hour. It took them another two hours before they bothered to seal off Madeleine’s bedroom. British investigators later called it the worst preserved crime scene they’d ever encountered. (11) Road blocks and checks weren’t put on Portugal’s borders for a full twelve hourand in days hundreds of guests, potential witnesses and suspects had checked out and left without ever having been interviewed. (12) KMC : The night seemed so long, every second was excruciating and it was dark and erm.. you just want there to be light and everybody searching and Madeleine found. (13)

VO : It's thought Madeleine was taken shortly after nine o'clock, in the following 45 minutes there would be two significant sightings of a man carrying a young girl, the first by Jane Tanner, one of the MCs' friends. Clip from the recons-fiction :JT : I was walking up here, probably as I got to... it's hard to know exactly where, but probably about here, I saw the man walk across the road there carrying a child.GMC : Jane had seen a man carrying a child away at, at 9:10, 9:15. VO :But no one took any notice because no one then knew that Madeleine was missing. They thought (but only Jane saw him !!!)the man was a local father carrying his own sleeping child. Two different witnesses reported seeing a man watching the MCs' apartment in the days leading up to Madeleine's disappearance. But the Portuguese police turned their focus on Gerry and Kate. In September, 4 months after she went missing, the MCs returned to the UK as suspects. (14)

RS:Did you kill your daughter? GMC : No. That’s an emphatic no. I mean the ludicrous thing is erm what, I suppose what’s been purported from Portugal is that Madeleine died in the apartment by an accident and we hid her body. Well when did she have the accident and died (la grammaire exige "die" ici), because, the only time she was left unattended was when we were at dinner so ...if she died then, how could we have disposed – hidden her body (le mot "dispose" était-il trop dur ?). You know, when there’s an immediate [inaudible but sounds like he was about to say ‘search’] it’s just nonsense. And if she died when we were in the apartment or fell and di...why would we ...why would we cover that up? (15)KMC : It gets even more ludicrous that we’ve obviously hidden her somewhere incredibly well where nobody’s found her .. (16) VO : Incredibly well.KMC : and we’d hidden her so well that we’d decided we’d move her in the car which we hired weeks later and you know, it’s just ridiculous. (17)

RS :When you come back to Portugal do you feel closer to Madeleine?KMC : Although I don’t know where Madeleine is, that is the last place that, you know, I saw her, held her, and I guess there’s a part of me that still feels connected to her there so. VO : If Madeleine is alive she'd be now 8 years old and possibly looks like this (UK photo vieillie), and a reason for not giving up hope come from this youg woman (photo de
Natasha Kampusch et clip reconstituant son enlèvement dans une rue
de Vienne lorsqu'elle avait dix ans). When Natascha was ten, she was abducted near her home in Vienna,like with Madeleine, the police
was slow to act and as the years passed they believed she had been
smuggled accross the border by a paedophile ring or killed.

RS : But all the while the all 8 and a
half years she was living in a cellar under this house, just 15 km
from her own home, Natascha was kept in a purpose build dungeon. She was given up for dead by virtually everyone except her Mum. Interview de NK par RSNK : My mother always thought that I be alive. VO :Then after nearly nine years in captivity, her kidnapper finally let his guard down and Natascha escaped.RS : Do you still have nightmares ?NK : Sometimes, but I'm looking forward. Mostly I am looking in the future and not back.RS : Are you confident that you can now live a normal and happy life ?NK : I think so. Yes, I hope so.

KMC : I think kids can be written off, you know, missing kids can be written off too easily. You cannot do that, you cannot give up on a child. (18) Clip de Madeleine et siblings, MC lançant "Madeleine"VO :With no police force currently investigating Madeleine’s case, the McCanns are using their own money, including royalties from Kate’s book to hire investigators and former police to continue the search for Madeleine. (19)GMC : Kids are survivors. (20)KMC : You know, Madeleine means tower of strength. Wherever she was, whoever she’s been with, whatever’s happened, we will get her through it. (21)RS:You will not rest until you find your daughter, until you wrap your arms around her. KMC : I don’t believe any parent could, you know, and I don’t believe we could ever reach the point where we just think oh well, we’ve done everything now, you know. Whilst the situation remains as it is, you know, Madeleine’s out there and she needs us to find her. (22)GMC : MmmmRS :You’ll keep looking forever.KMC : We will. (23)